Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0470440589, Paperback)

Manage your business from a services perspective

What if technology was designed to serve the business — every time? That's service management! Done properly, it can make everybody happy — the customer, the service provider, and the business owner. Understand the value of managing your physical environments and IT systems with an integrated approach. Learn how real companies improve business performance by streamlining business processes and applying service management standards and best practices.

Define service — identify what the customer wants, how the business can provide it, and which technological tools will make it happen

Who's king? — whether you're the IT manager or the business owner, see how to think like the customer

Standards are key — understand the standards and best practices that can improve quality and reduce costs

Strategically speaking — develop and implement a service management strategy

What's it worth? — assess the costs and return associated with service management

Get down to business — discover how to manage data centers, support services, desktops and devices, IT security, and other business services

See it at work — explore case studies of service management in the manufacturing, retail, health care, hospitality, and other business sectors

Open the book and find:

How the digital world has altered service

Service management assets and tools

Resources for best practices and standards information

Advice for defining, creating, and maintaining a service management plan

The six layers of service management

How to optimize a data center

Ideas for managing your business assets as services

The role of virtualization and cloud computing